Advertising must draw a fine line between intrusiveness, and engaging the recipient with relevant, contextual and informative media messaging. The utility of raw data without context is marginal, at best.
Real estate sales rely on advertising to sell properties. The sales produce significant profits for the agents. A challenge in real estate is to make sure that a prospective buyer sees real estate that is appropriately tailored to what the buyer wants to see. This makes it more likely that the buyer will actually complete the sale.
There are opportunities for more consistent data collection and information dissemination mechanism at the point of sale itself, that is, at the property being sold.
Popular methods used by Real Estate Agents to sell properties include Yard Signs (75%), Internet (61%) and Open House (51%). In addition, approximately (60%) of those with Yard Signs also provide a sales property information flyer. They are accessed from a plastic box holder that is mounted on the “For Sale” sign post.
“Drive-bys”, or people simply looking though neighborhoods is one way that people often find real estate in which they have interest. This allows prospective buyers an opportunity to explore a particular area in order to “get a feel for the community”. This method is not only contextually superior, but more informative. However, the quality, consistency and availability of data about those properties is not easily acquired when remote or disconnected from the internet.
Informational flyers (or condensed sales brochures) may be available at the curb in an attempt to provide a condensed version of the key data that is available online via the internet to the user while they're contextually present. However, the flyers' print and reproduction quality runs the gamut and are typically low quality black and white copies that are poorly designed and universally inconsistent (i.e. no two flyers look alike or provide the same data set).
By their nature, a collection of paper-based brochures (or flyers) that are available to any passer-by provide no technical or automated means for customer relationship follow-up or management because no one knows who for sure picked them up. Many times, the boxes are empty.